Tech Briefs Magazine - October 2023 - MD-19

MOTION CONTROL CHANNEL
Sponsored by
With six degrees of freedom in motion, XPlanar is highly flexible and suitable for
the most diverse transport tasks in the widest variety of application areas, extending
up to the food, pharma, and lab automation industries. (Image: Beckhoff)
can now be installed in fixed mountings. The jets are complex,
both mechanically and electrically, and the ability to move the
workpieces rather than the plasma jets themselves reduces
wear to the feed lines.
Stichling also sees additional benefits from the increased
flexibility. " We can attach a variety of material samples to the
mover for treatment using just simple adapters, " he said, adding
that " We can easily add processing stations alongside the
plasma jets - markers for good parts, for instance, or optical
sensing heads to conduct full part inspections - and carry
workpieces to them flexibly as needed. And XPlanar's rapid
acceleration also lets us move material samples at high speeds;
with thin samples, for instance, this helps minimize treatment
time with the fixed jet. "
According to Stichling, XPlanar's functional benefits are proving
valuable in a range of applications. " Conventional setups use
a six-axis robot or linear motors to move a plasma jet around a
stationary workpiece. From a cost perspective, XPlanar comes in
somewhere between linear-axis and robotic systems, " " he said.
" With flat parts that don't require much vertical travel on the
z-axis, where robotic systems are usually ideal, XPlanar offers an
excellent alternative to gantry-type systems. XPlanar's advantages
in terms of lack of wear, easy cleaning and clean-room
compatibility also play out here. "
For Stichling, XPlanar has the potential to optimize plasma
surface treatment in two key areas, going forward: direct integration
of in-line testing for full inspections during the treatment
process, and custom-programmable mover travel routes
for end customers.
Another advantage for Plasmatreat was that it took less than
two months to integrate the XPlanar system into its machine
- not least because Beckhoff was quick to supply the 3D data
and the electrical connection information that enabled the
company to rapidly incorporate the XPlanar starter kit into its
machine design. XPlanar, according to Stichling, has proved to
be both robust and reliable. And another advantage, he
pointed out, is that the entire plasma treatment cell has now
been fully automated using PC-based control, making it a complete
system solution from a single source.
This article was written by Jeff Johnson, Mechatronics
Product Manager, Beckhoff USA (Savage, MN). For more
information, visit www.beckhoff.com/xplanar.
Motion Design, October 2023
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9/19/23 11:45 AM

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Tech Briefs Magazine - October 2023

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